Lace front wig hair texture and origin

Many customers get confused with all the different hair types and textures available, it can be confusing and overwhelming. Keeping that in mind, we have developed a quick primer to guide you through the various hair options available at zarawigs.com. There are two things to keep in mind: hair origin and hair texture.

Hair Origin

Hair origin refers to the source of the hair, most importantly, the ethnicity of the donor. The types of hair texture we offer at zarawigs.com are described below:

Indian
Indian hair is the most commonly used high-end hair on the market. It's available in abundance and used widely for the vast majority of premium hair extensions and wigs. Indian hair ranges from silky and straight to loosely curled. Naturally wavy and curly textures are sold at a premium because this hair is far less common and in high demand.

At zarawigs.com we also carry virgin, single donor, Indian remy hair in straight, wavy and loosely curled textures. This means that your hair comes from one donor (hence the term single donor), versus wigs made of hair that combines bits from multiple donors. Single donor wigs look like a very natural head of hair becuase it tapers as you get closer to the tips, like most natural hair does.

Chinese
Chinese hair often gets a bad rap because poor quality Chinese hair is often used to make cheap weft and extension hair. As a result, Chinese hair was associated with poor quality when in reality, the quality of the hair has more to do with the processing and handling than the origin. At zarawigs.com we sell virgin, single donor Chinese remy hair and Chinese remy hair processed into African American or Coarse Curly textures. Chinese hair is very thick and can be silky or coarse and can also have some body. Since a lot of our virgin Chinese hair comes from rural villages, it often is available in natural brown shades, lighter at the tips, becuase of sun exposure, as opposed to the most commonly available darker Chinese hair.

Asian Remy Malaysian Texture
Honestly, we made this up. At the time, there were many, many wig companies falsely marketing hair as Malaysian. We knew the origin of the hair, had a very similar hair type and decided to call it Asian Remy Malaysian Texture, to denote that it is comparable to what many other companies were selling as Malaysian hair. The hair is silky, with a slight bend to it (it has a bit of body and holds curl well) and processes beautifully into curly and African American textures.

Mongolian
Mongolian hair is absolutely gorgeous and is stunningly silky straight. Sometimes it has a little body to it, most of the time it's just super silky straight. Mongolian hair is a perfect option for those looking for Euro texture, it's a wonderful substitute for Russian hair (which is very expensive and can be a bit fine) and is often used in Sheitels. At zarawigs.com we do not process Mongolian hair for texture.

Malaysian
We carry virgin, single donor Malaysian hair at zarawigs.com. Very, very, very rarely is Malaysian hair processed for curl or African American (yaki) texture. It's so highly sought, and valuable in it's virgin state, that to process it for texture is to devalue it. Malaysian hair is usually wavy and typically ranges from a very slight bend to a loose body wave.

Hair Texture

Now that we've covered basic hair origins, it's time to give you the run down on hair texture:

Silky
This is most hair in its unprocessed state. It's suitable for many ethnicities, as long as you're looking for silky hair with shine. The amount of shine in the hair really depends on the hair color. With lighter colors, such as blonde, that have been processed (as is usually the case), it's not as shiny as darker colors. Jet black will often be the shiniest because it reflects the most light.

Natural Wave or Curl
This is hair in its unprocessed naturally wavy texture. This is most commonly found in Indian and Malaysian textures. This is a believable texture on any ethnicity because it is natural.

Body Wave, Deep Wave, Deep Curl, Latin Wave, Spiral Curl, Kinky Curl, Jheri Curl
These are all descriptors for different types of curl and wave patterns. The only one that's universally consistent is the body wave, everything else varies by manufacturer. As a result you cannot order a deep wave from one company and expect all deep waves to be the same, they are arbitrary descriptors used to describe the size and shape of a curl pattern. The best way to ensure consistency in your curl pattern is to use measurements as it is universally understood to describe the size of the curl in millimeters. If you have one curl pattern that you like, ask for the size of the curl and always order that size.

Here's another tip as well, use looser curl patterns the lighter the hair color. It's incredibly difficult to get nice curl patterns on blonde hair. At zarawigs.com, we occasionally process a custom perm on blonde wigs because no matter how good the wigmaker is, blonde hair processed for curl just feels a bit different than darker colors. It's hard to explain, but when you've handled a lot of hair, you can appreciate the difference.

The hair that we use for processing typically is shiny, the darker the hair and the looser the curl pattern, the higher the level of shine because the less processing to the hair.

Coarse Curly
At zarawigs.com we developed a special type of curl pattern that we call "coarse curly". It's almost a combination of African American and curly textures, what most people commonly associate as the hair texture of those who are biracial with one black parent. To use less politically correct terms "biracial hair." While we know it's completely wrong to use such a term as hair can come in all types and textures and the parentage of a person is no guarantee of hair texture, however, we also know that when we say "biracial hair" you know exactly what we're talking about. Typically we prefer to offer this hair in natural uncolored hair, jet black, 1B or 2, because the more processing to the hair, the more difficult it is to not over-process the hair. This is a very believable texture on women of color because it is curly, yet coarse. If you are a hair junkie, and you have "celebrity hair idols" (it's okay, we don't judge), coarse curly hair resembles the hair of Tracee Ross (without lots of product and slick shiny styling stuff) or Rachel True, depending on the curl pattern.

African American, Yaki, Kinky Straight and Coarse African American
These are all descriptors used to describe hair that is processed to look like relaxed African American hair. At zarawigs.com we process Indian, Chinese, and Asian Remy Malaysian Texture hair for this purpose. The processing can range from silky, yet coarse, to very coarse. Customers who are looking for that real "real" African American look usually opt for the Zara Luxe wigs, because we can get much better processing on Chinese Remy hair using our special double process that yields a coarse look. This can also be altered to range from a coarse look to a very coarse look. By default, the lighter the color, the coarser the hair because hair that is processed for color and texture is double processed.

Most of our customers that order African American texture order Asian Remy Malaysian African American Relaxed Texture. It's a very nice texture that glides smoothly. Again, the lighter the color, the coarser it will be. Our customers that want their hair to look 100% undetectable usually opt for the Zara Luxe, to achieve the coarser texture.

Summary
Over the years of selling to women across the globe, our customers usually fall into two distinct categories: practical and imaginative. Practical customers typically want to replicate their own hair after losing some or all of it, or have very demanding careers that don't allow much time to "fuss with" their hair. They opt for shorter lengths, more believable textures and very conservative colors (and even add in a few grey hairs for realism). Our imaginative customers are usually fashionistas always wanting to try something new. These are the ones who opt for the bold reds the blondes and the long lengths and exotic color blends. When purchasing a wig we hope that you first take a good look at what you're going for because that will determine the type of length and texture you should seek. As always, we're here to help answer your questions.